Nn Schools Find Way To Keep Gymnastics Teams

NEWPORT NEWS — Board members want the sport to be available to students by working with a city-run center.

The gymnastics program had been hobbling along for years, hurt by a lack of student participation, when athletics supervisor Gary Silvey approached the School Board last week.

"We do have a situation with gymnastics and I don't know how to handle it," he said.

Virginia High School League rules require the school division to purchase vaulting tables next year for three high school gymnastic teams at a cost of $9,600. The money wasn't included in the upcoming year's athletic budget.

Along with low student turnout, Silvey outlined why spending the money probably wasn't practical: too hard to find qualified coaches; only three out of five high schools have equipment; many Peninsula and South Hampton Roads schools no longer offer the sport; learning gymnastics at the high school level is difficult.

Despite Menchville High School's gymnastic team winning the Eastern Regional competition last season for the first time in 33 years, Silvey recommended the division end the sport starting next school year.

However, School Board members weren't willing to accept the request. They suggested school officials look at options to keep it alive, namely having teams practice at the Riverview Gymnastics Center, operated by the city. Opened in the mid-1990s, the center has 19 gymnastics teachers and maintains equipment for training and competition purposes.

This past gymnastic season --which started in November and ended in February -- found teams from Menchville and Heritage high schools using the center for practices on a daily basis, said Tammy Jordan, recreation program superintendent for the parks and recreation department.

Because the center offers gymnastic classes and trains three teams of its own, allowing high school teams to use it more frequently depends on scheduling, which won't be determined until the fall, Jordan said.

"We would do our best and try (to make space available)," she said. "But we can't make any promises until we know what our class schedules will be like."

Most of the students on gymnastics teams at Menchville and other Newport News schools at one time took classes at Riverview, said Joan Ivey, gymnastics specialist at the center, which also employs two instructors who are high school students.

One of those instructors, Kori Brown, has competed on Menchville's team for two seasons. The experience has been positive for her physically and socially, she said. Getting rid of gymnastics would be like punishing Menchville for having a good season, said Brown, a sophomore.

"I don't understand why they would take it away," she said. "I would not like that at all because it's the only sport I do and I would have nothing to do."

One way to increase student participation in gymnastics would be for the Virginia High School League to create different levels of student competition, from beginner to advanced, said Skip Mollenhauer, gymnastics coach and physical education teacher at Menchville for over 30 years.

Because of the higher skills necessary to do gymnastics today, students need some basic classes before joining a team, Mollenhauer said. While high school students with natural ability can learn gymnastics, these students often fall short when they compete against peers involved in year-round club-run teams. Maryland high school gymnastic competitions include different divisions based on skill.

"When you do things like that you get a lot of kids involved and they're successful," Mollenhauer said. *